nurse looked very worried indeed.
“so had i,” she said. “we must have gone too fast for him!” and she flew up on to the top of a tree and gazed away across the hills. “he never will let us lend him wings,” she went on, “so he always gets left behind. he says his seven-leagued boots will last him out all right, and it’s no good arguing with him. now, i expect he’s stuck somewhere, or has stumbled upon the ogres and had a fight.”
“what!” cried peggy in great horror. “my giant[29] fighting? oh, he’d sure to be beaten. what shall i do?” and she fluttered to and fro in great distress.
“why, wish he were here, of course,” said nurse. “you’ve five wishes left still, haven’t you?”
peggy wished at once, and the giant came crashing through the wood, upsetting the sugar trees in all directions.
“oh, look!” said nurse. “how careless you are!” (but she didn’t say it a bit in her old cross way.) “plant those trees again before you do anything else!”
the giant looked terribly knocked about and woebegone, and his coat was all in tatters, but he did as he was told at once, balancing the trees up again, and stamping in their roots well, like peggy had seen the gardener do with his plants. then he sat down on the ground and wiped his hot face with his pocket-handkerchief, and the fairies all stopped eating sweets to hear what he had to say.
“phew!” he gasped, “i’ve had an awful time! whatever possessed you all to go at such a pace?”
“well, i like that!” said nurse. “when it was you who asked us to get to the sugar-wood before dark!”
“i wish i hadn’t now,” said the giant. “trying to catch you up i stumbled right into the middle of the ogres, and i’d no sooner got away from them—after having my coat torn half off my back—than i stepped plump on to the red dragon, and you know what that means!”
“dear, dear!” said nurse. “was he very vexed?”
“vexed!” said the giant. “he was in such a hideous passion that he made after me as fast as he could waddle—and then he started gliding. i was up in the air in a moment, i can tell you, striding along for all i was worth, and when he saw he couldn’t catch me from the ground he took to his wings and flew! and when a dragon uses his wings—well—you know what you’ve got to expect![30] he’s after me now—and the ogres are, too!” he added resignedly.
“oh, they’ll never find you here!” said nurse. “the ring brought you along faster than any ogre or dragon could travel.”
“i thought an ogre was almost the same as a giant?” peggy whispered to nurse.
“good gracious, no!” said she. “don’t let the giant hear you say that! they’re a set of vagabonds and ruffians who haunt the edge of fairy-land. the kind with one eye in their foreheads, and the sort who say ‘fe-fo-fum.’ you must have read about them? they can’t harm us fairies, but any giant, especially a really nice good one like yours, makes them simply mad!”
peggy slid off her branch and flew to the giant, perching on his shoulder and stroking his hair.
“i’ll take care of you,” she said, “if they do come. don’t you be afraid! he’ll be all right, won’t he?” she added, turning to the fairies.
but they were not listening.
they had all flown to the tops of their trees and were balancing on the topmost branches, bending forward and listening intently. for there was a soft humming, grumbling, hissing, bleating, gurgling sound coming from somewhere very far away!
“that’s the ogres,” said nurse, looking very grave—and the sound got a tiny bit louder.
then a little cold, tinkling, rippling, singing, shivering, clinking sound began as well—so faint that it was just like a funny little whisper, and “that’s the dragon and he’ll be here first!” cried all the fairies together, looking graver still, and they began to flutter round peggy and the giant, staring at the ring, which was winking and[31] flashing long green darts of light over everything and everybody.
“what shall i wish?” asked peggy, glancing at the giant, who was obviously too tired out to move another step. (the sounds were every second getting louder and louder.) “i—i should rather like to see them,” she added shyly, “if i can make the dear giant quite safe.”
“wish me to be invisible,” said the giant wearily. “then i shan’t have to get up. i’ve been practising it, so you won’t have any difficulty.”
“yes, that’ll do nicely,” said nurse. the noise had suddenly become so loud that peggy could hardly hear her. “and you get as much behind the trunk as you can,” she went on to peggy at the top of her voice, “and i’ll sit on a branch in front of you and hide you. if they do see you, you’ve only got to wish yourself invisible too.”
the noise had now changed to the rattling kind that a million luggage trains would make if they were all driven along in a row at once, and peggy could hear tree after tree crashing to the ground. she had only just time to wish, and see the giant disappear completely, when a great red creature plunged down through the branches above into the open space in front of the fairies, and fell on his side, quite close to peggy’s tree, lashing his tail and panting like a dog.
tongues of red and blue fire flashed and darted up and down his scaly back, and his scarlet wings spreading across the grass withered it up at once. peggy did feel glad she hadn’t missed the sight! but she took the precaution to wish that he should not crush the giant, in case invisible giants could be crushed.
in a few seconds the dragon rolled on to his little short stubbly feet and waddled up to nurse.
“where’s the giant?” he lisped in a high and very soft[32] voice. “i know he’s somewhere here, and i’ll flatten down every one of your sugar trees if you don’t tell me this minute!”
peggy drew this to show what the dragon looked like when nurse said, “you wouldn’t dare!” nurse is on the left and is just going to eat her sugar bird. peggy is up above peeping from behind the tree. she wanted to draw the ogres too, but there wasn’t any room. mother only helped her with some of the branches, everything else she did by herself, and the fairies took ages to do. they are sitting on the boughs eating the sugar animals and birds. it made the dragon furious to see they weren’t afraid of him a bit. those long things on the ground are the trees he knocked down, and the bits of red are the fires he started with his red-hot paws. the giant is invisible sitting on the grass, just behind the dragon’s tongue.
there was really something very frightening in his little polite voice!
“you wouldn’t dare!” said nurse, laughing scornfully. “run along and look about for him! he must be somewhere, as you rightly remark,” and she turned her back on him and began to nibble at a sugar bird.
the dragon raised his eyebrows ironically, but finding nurse was not looking at him any longer, he began to trot and glide about the wood, sticking his long red tongue under the fallen trees to lift them up, and hissing to himself more and more when he couldn’t find the giant anywhere.
(and all the time the sound of the ogres coming got louder and louder and louder!)
“there’s some magic going on!” said the dragon at last, angrily, raising himself up on to the very tip of his tail and glaring over the tree-tops. “ha, ha!” he added, “here come the others at last,” and he stretched out two welcoming paws to the two enormous ogres who at that moment crashed into the wood.
peggy nearly tumbled out of the tree in her excitement, for this was worth seeing indeed! one of the ogres had only one eye in the middle of his forehead, just as she’d thought he would, and he did nothing but say “fe-fo-fum!” over and over again, and stamp and growl and snarl.
the other one had three heads which all looked different ways, and he kept gnashing his three lots of teeth and snorting at the dragon, who would go on smiling at him.
then both ogres advanced upon nurse, brandishing their clubs.
[33]“we went miles out of our way!” they roared. “where’s he gone to now?”
nurse looked them over calmly from head to toe.
“take your caps off this moment,” she said severely. “i think you forget who you’re speaking to!”
they looked rather cowed for the moment, and took their caps off sheepishly without saying a word, though the dragon’s chuckle was enough to infuriate anybody. (the ogre with the three heads had of course to take off three caps.)
“that’s better!” said nurse. “now, what do you want?”
“the giant, of course,” growled the ogre with one eye. “fe-fo-fum! fe-fo-fum!” and he trampled up and down restlessly.
it was more than peggy could stand.
“oh, do go on with the verse!” she called out imploringly, leaning forward right out of the tree. “you’ve said that line over and over again, and it’s not nearly all! you must remember how it goes on:
‘fe-fo-fum!
i smell the blood of an englishman!
be he alive——’”
but she got no further, for with a scream of triumph the dragon flung himself forward and seized her tree right up by the roots, and the nearest ogre at the same moment plucked her out of it by his finger and thumb.
“quick, miss peggy!” screamed nurse, and peggy did wish quick, ... and found herself back on the old muddy high road again, being dragged along it by nurse. “for if you don’t hurry a bit more,” she went on, “you’ll catch your death of cold in those wet socks.”
peggy burst into tears. nurse was no longer a bit like[34] a nice fairy, and it was all such a dreadfully sudden change, and everything felt so very flat. even the stone in her ring looked small, and as dull as a pebble.
“oh dear, oh dear!” she sobbed. “and we never got to the games at all! and i’ve still got one wish left that i never used. now it will be wasted!” and the tears poured fast down her cheeks.
nurse looked down at her in astonishment, for peggy never cried.
“what’s come over you all of a sudden?” she asked.
“i wish you were always nice like just now,” sobbed peggy, quite forgetting nurse never remembered anything about the adventures. “we were having such a lovely time! and then you went and made me leave at the most exciting bit.”
“i don’t think it’s very exciting to stand in a muddy ditch!” said nurse, but her voice had all at once become very soft and gentle. “but never mind, miss peggy dear. i’ll tell you the story of the three bears now if you like, then we shall soon get home. and perhaps there’ll be a letter from mother; i shouldn’t wonder!”
peggy could scarcely believe her ears, for except in fairy-land nurse never really talked like that. her tears were forgotten very quickly, for nurse went on being like it all the rest of the day, laughing and playing and romping with peggy right up till bedtime, and even a little while after!
peggy couldn’t make it out.
you see she never noticed that she had used up her sixth wish after all.
